


Children Playing At Games

by mmmdraco



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-10 03:18:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tennis was a part of all of their lives before they came to Seigaku.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children Playing At Games

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis is Konomi-sensei's.

Ryoma remembers the first time he played with a tennis ball. It wasn't on a tennis court, and didn't have anything to do with hitting the ball. Instead, it was in the bathtub.

He would get in the tub with his father when he was just a tiny thing, really, and his father would put a few tennis balls in the tub and would put them behind Ryoma's knees and Ryoma would laugh as his knees would begin to float. Then they would shift and float up to the surface, nearly escaping the water for a moment before floating on top. His father would wash his hair and tickle him with a soapy finger on his sides, and it's really one of his best memories of his father, because it wasn't a competition, or being forced to do something he didn't want to do.

He'd like to have those times back, but he wouldn't be comfortable taking a bath with his father now at *all*.

\--------------------

Tezuka, as a young boy, took to tennis very easily. He was good at it, and liked the feel of the tennis racket in his hand. He took to taking his tennis racket with him everywhere he went, and even took it to bed with him.

It wasn't until he woke up with a checked pattern all along one side of his face on the morning of school pictures that his mother could convince him to at least sleep with the tennis racket *under* his pillow, though. He managed to turn his head when the photographer took the picture, and it turned out okay.

\-------------------

Syusuke liked to play tricks on his little brother, Yuuta. Sometimes, his friend Saeki would help him out. Once they started playing tennis, Fuji had a grand idea one day. They got some rice paper and their tennis rackets and went to the sandbox.

Yuuta wouldn't wake up until later on in the morning, but Syusuke and Saeki worked fast. They dug a deep hole in the sandbox, then put their tennis rackets over the opening, covered it all with rice paper, and covered that with sand. They put some leaves in the sandbox around it so they would know where not to step.

Later on, Yuuta came running over to see what his brother was doing. He hit the trap and fell in and began to cry. Syusuke's racket had landed on his head. Syukuke laughed about it, and the sand that got in Yuuta's teddy bear pajamas (which he'd snuck out of the house still wearing), but helped Yuuta out of the hole with Saeki's help. They filled in the hole and Yuuta secretly snuck some sand inside and dumped it on Syusuke's new cactus.

\-------------------

When Oishi was a little boy, he liked to fly kites more than anything else. However, he wasn't very good. He always got his kites stuck in trees. When that happened, he'd have to sneak into the storage shed and get his father's tennis racket and climb up into the tree to try to dislodge it. 

Sometimes, he'd accidentally tear the kite. There was a particular tree in his front yard that held pieces of 17 different kites at one point. It also held one piece of grip tape from Oishi's father's tennis racket.

\-------------------

Eiji liked to jump on the trampoline a lot as a child. His sister liked to throw chestnuts at him while he was doing it. He could complain to his mother or father or grandmother, sure, but there wasn't any satisfaction in just getting her yelled at.

So, Eiji started learning to jump to be where she was throwing. One day he took her tennis racket, and when she started throwing chestnuts, he picked up the racket where he had it sitting on the springs, and hit the chestnuts back at her. She cried a bit, and Eiji apologized, but told her not to throw chestnuts again.

The next week, she started throwing crab apples.

\-------------------

Momoshiro liked to cut things up as a little boy. He'd cut paper, and the curtains, and his socks, and it never seemed to make a difference where all of the cutting utensils were. He'd jump up and get them, or climb up to them, or somehow get his hands on them, and he'd cut things. He liked making them different shapes. His favorite idea was to get things with holes in them, stick other things through those holes, and cut.

He did this once with a tennis racket. He put it on top of his head and cut his hair as it came through. He ended up with a bit of a bald spot in the middle, but it wasn't really that bad of a haircut, he told himself. But he got in trouble, more for accidentally cutting up some of the strings on his mother's tennis racket than anything else.

\-------------------

The drink machine near where Inui learned to play tennis only sold three things: water, orange juice, and coffee. Inui didn't like any of them and certainly wasn't going to spend money on something he wasn't going to drink. 

Instead, he started to bring his own drinks to practice. It started with a bottle of strawberry juice, or a container of lemonade. But he'd run out of almost everything one day and had mixed it all. His father had called it a "suicide", but Inui liked it. So he just called it "Inui Juice".

It turned out well, and gave him lots of energy, so Inui started to experiment. After all, he'd learned all about experiments in school the week before. It was time to put theory to the test.

\-------------------

Kawamura was young when he made his first onigiri. His father gave him a tennis ball and told him, "Make it look like this." It was bigger than his hands could really hold, but he worked at it until he got it right. It didn't look quite like he remembered the onigiri that his father made, but it looked like a tennis ball. He'd even done the little line that went all the way around.

His friend Akutsu stopped by just after he finished cleaning up and Kawamura jumped at the chance to let him try one. Akutsu didn't want to at first, but relented when Kawamura pouted a bit. Just as he was about to take a bite, he asked, "What flavor is it?"

Kawamura answered as Akutsu sunk his teeth in. "Wasabi."

Akutsu drank five glasses of water and a glass of milk before he left. But he didn't yell at Kawamura, and Kawamura couldn't bring himself to ask if the onigiri had been alright.

\-------------------

Kaidoh only watched TV once per week. He did it while his mother was doing the housework that he couldn't help with. She was doing dishes right now, but it was the expensive ones, so he wasn't supposed to help out.

He watched TV instead. There wasn't anything on, really. He did see a tennis game. It didn't look interesting at first, though. But he saw a cat walk by outside and watched it for a moment until it ran out of sight. Then he turned back to the TV. Some guy hit a really interesting shot! It swerved in the air. Kaidoh thought it looked really cool, like a cat when it swished its tail.

He got to his feet and stumbled into the kitched behind his mother and tugged on her apron strings, careful not to tug too hard and disturb his little brother who was on his way.

She stopped scrubbing at a bit of starch left in a pan from cooking noodles, and looked at Kaidoh. "Yes, sweetie?"

"Mommy," Kaidoh asked, and blushed, then pointed to the TV. "Mommy, I wanna play that!"

She smiled. "I'll talk to your daddy about it, Kaoru."

Kaidoh nodded, and began to run off, then came back quickly and placed a kiss on his mother's stomach. "That's for you *and* the baby. Remember, you have to share!" Then, he toddled back to the other room and watched the game. The guy who had used that cool cat-tail thing had a bandanna on. Kaidoh thought maybe he should get one of those, too.


End file.
